Introduction

The work of Albanian-born artist Anri Sala (b. Tirana, 1974) blends image, sound, and architecture and is characterized by the subtle but profound exploration of all aspects of sound. This installation, designed by the artist for the Centre Pompidou, takes the form of four recent films arranged in a one-hour loop, various sound sources, as well as objects and photographs. Together, these items function as a single work of art, like a symphony. The films bring us to diverse locations on the globe: Sarajevo during the siege of 1992-1995 (1395 Days without Red, 2011), a geodesic dome in Berlin (Answer Me, 2008), a deserted banquet hall in Bordeaux (Le Clash, 2010) and the Aztec site Tlatelolco in Mexico (Tlatelolco Clash, 2011).

By leaving only one of its walls open, the exhibition plays with the very space of the Galerie Sud and its street-level location. Watching both Parisian passers-by and the characters in the films, the visitor stands at an interstice, hesitating between fiction and reality. In an original take on audio spatialization, the artist transforms the Galerie into a veritable music box that plays a new version of the Clash’s famous punk anthem Should I Stay or Should I Go one moment, then a Tchaikovsky symphony or drum beats the next. Doldrums (2008) brings us ten snare drums that come intermittently to life, while No Window No Cry (Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, Centre Pompidou, Paris) (2012) consists of a small music box set into one of the windows, which, when activated, plays a version of the Clash song. The sculpture Title Suspended (2008), one of the artist’s works in the Centre Pompidou’s Collection, completes the installation along with two photographs.